Coiitribiitioiis from the Jaiiuiniya Bnihinaiia. 195 



(cf. e. g. J. G. T. Grasse, Gcsta Roiimiiontiu, Leipzig, 1905, ii, p. 275 

 and Skeat, The Complete Works of Geoffrey Chaucer, Oxford, 1894, 

 V, p. 437, who further refers to Leopold Dukes' Rabhinische Bliimeii- 

 lese, LeijDzig, 1844, p. 192 = Notes and Queries, Series i, vol. xii, 

 London, 1855, p. 123). 



But this Rabbinical tradition in turn appears to be derived from 

 Hindu sources. For in the Book of Laughable (or Refreshing) 

 Stories which Yuhanna Abu '1-Faraj (' Bar-Hebraeus ') compiled in 

 the late years of his hfe (he died in 1286) the tale appears as the 

 sixth anecdote of the third chapter which is devoted to the ' Pro- 

 fitable Sayings of the Indian Sages ' (First published by L. Morales 

 in Zeitsch. d. deiitschen morgenl. Gesellschaft, xl, 1886, p. 412 [trans- 

 lation] and p. 425 [text] ; then by E. A. Wallis Budge, The Laugh- 

 able Stories collected by Bar-Hebraeus, London, 1897 = Luzac's 

 Semitic Texts and Translation Series, vol. i, and, in translation, 

 E. A. Wallis Budge, Oriental Wit and Wisdom or the 'Laughable 

 Stories collected by Mar Gregory John Bar-Hebraeus, London, 1899) 

 As to Bar-Hebraeus' source. Budge suggests ^ that ' some of the 

 sayings of the Greek, Persian, hidian, and Arabian sages he prob- 

 ably took from some work like that of Ahmad ibn Muhaminad ibn 

 Miskavaih (died A. H. 421 = A. D. 1030) who collected a number 

 of precepts of the ancient Sages of Persia, India, Arabia, and Greece, 

 which were translated into Persian by Taki Shushtarl,^ and it seems 

 that he supplemented these from notes made during the course of 

 his own studies.' With the means at my disposal here I cannot 

 determine whether the story here discussed formed part of those 

 recorded in the Arabic collection or its Persian translation. Nor 

 can I give from Sanskrit or Buddhistic literature a parallel to our 

 legend. So that its probable Indian origin rests, for the present, 

 upon the authority of Bar-Hebraeus. 



1 111 his Translation, 1899, p. xxiii. 



2 ' Taki ud-Din Muhammad B. Sliaikh Muhammad ul-AiTajani ut-Tustari, 

 a scliolar and poet of Persian birth, repaired to the coui"t of Akbar, by 

 whose command he turned the Shahniimah into prose,' C. Hieu, Catalogue 

 of the Persian Manuscripts in the British Mnseitm^ vol. ii, 1881, p. 440—441. 

 MS. Orient. 457 there described contains, inter alia, on fol. 59 a, ' Max- 

 ims of Indian Sages.' 



